5:49 PM,
Sep. 18, 2013

Written by

Brian Dickerson
Detroit Free Press

The best interests of the child: For more than half a century, those six words have been the lodestar for government decision-makers charged with care of Michigan's most vulnerable citizens.

But Republicans in the state House of Representative will turn that common-sense standard on its head Wednesday if they succeed in advancing two bills that would license faith-based adoption agencies to discriminate against gays seeking to adopt hard-to-place foster children.

Michigan already places formidable legal obstacles in the path of gays seeking to adopt. The state's ban on same-sex ...